Proceedings of the IEEE - Popular - Nathan
Published in May 2012
Arokia Nathan, Arman Ahnood, Matthew T. Cole, Sungsik Lee, Yuji Suzuki, Pritesh Hiralal, Francesco Bonaccorso, Tawfique Hasan, Luis Garcia-Gancedo, Andrea Dyadyusha, Samiul Haque, Piers Andrew, Stephan Hofmann, James Moultrie, Daping Chu, Andrew J. Flewitt, Andrea C. Ferrari, Michael J. Kelly, John Robertson, Gehan A. J. Amaratunga, and William I. Milne
Thin-film electronics in its myriad forms has underpinned much of the technological innovation in the fields of displays, sensors, and energy conversion over the past four decades. This technology also forms the basis of flexible electronics. Here we review the current status of flexible electronics and attempt to predict the future promise of these pervading technologies in healthcare, environmental monitoring, displays and human-machine interactivity, energy conversion, management and storage, and communication and wireless networks.